Agile development is based on the evolution of users’ needs, adopting iterative and step by step method to develop software. In agile development, software projects are divided into several sub-projects at the beginning of construction, and the results of each sub-project have been tested and have visual, integrated and operational characteristics. In other words, a large project is broken up into smaller projects that are connected but also run independently and completed separately, leaving the software in a usable state all the time.
The most widely used traditional project management is the project management under the waterfall model. The waterfall model defines the activities of the software life cycle as several stages of work connected in a fixed sequence, like a waterfall, and finally obtains software products.
The core idea of waterfall model is to simplify the problem according to the process, separate the realization and design of function, and facilitate the division of labor and collaboration, that is, to use structured analysis and design method to separate the logical realization from the physical realization. The software life cycle is divided into six basic activities, such as plan making, requirement analysis, software design, program writing, software testing and operation and maintenance, and provides a fixed sequence of them from top to bottom, connecting with each other, like a waterfall, falling step by step.
Although the topic of Agile has been very hot in recent years, it seems that everyone is talking about agile and using agile, but in the real work environment, Agile and waterfall or traditional project management represented by waterfall still exist equally, especially in some hardware manufacturing and large industrial production environment. Some of the classical theories of traditional project management still hold their dominant position.
In fact, agile project management and traditional project management are not a replacement of the relationship, a more rational understanding is that they complement each other, each applied in their own more suitable project environment.